Mornings are sometimes the worst and this one is no different. A low mist plays across the ground. Moriah is careful. She takes a tentative step forward but soon stops. The normal cries of birds that would call to each other in the Spring are silent. She tilts her head to the side, as if to listen to the very ground she walks on but even that is silent. The forest at the edge of the Alderwood is not silent in its usual daylight bliss. It is held tight against itself. A predator's hush has fallen around Moriah and her companion.
She takes a soft, almost silent, inhalation of the air. She can taste the wariness all around her. It clings to each blade of grass. Leaning into her earliest trainings, her feet slide over the blades of grass. They barely touch the twigs scattered carelessly by last night's storm. Her right gloved hand slowly reaches out to the dampened trunk of the Birest tree. She motions to her companion to refrain in their stride forward and remain in place. Soft muddy hair slips out from her faded moss colored cloak.
Her head tilts to the left. Hand steady on the tree. Eyes unfocused. Most would claim she was searching her surroundings like any other Guardian. They would be wrong.
She listens with more than her sharp shaped ears. Not to the subtle rustling of leaves from the tree she is touching with her slender gloved hand. Not to the distant snap of twigs under the nimble feet of the small Durianer. The fist sized rodent scurried carefully across the ground. Its small tail bobs up and down with worry.
She lowers her lids over her icy colored eyes. Once the visual distractions are muted, subtle tendrils of power stretch out. The currents running in the very air itself ripple with magic that few can sense as well as Moriah. That energy threads itself in a tapestry of power. Her partial blindness clouds most of her normal vision. Where her sight fails her, the magic that is pulsing in her very bones reaches out to that tapestry. Memories call out that were long abandoned from the stones beneath their feet. Soft pulses of presences. Her mouth waters slightly at the mental taste of every living thing within a hundred paces.
A chuff of air exudes from her companion behind her. Merlock shifts his weight. His moves are nothing like a common bear. There is a palpable mass to him. The ground gives way to his hefty weight. She can see in her mind that he is hunched over on all fours. His fur thick and blackened as the stormy night sky. A molten honey color resides in his eyes. He is always there. Always within reach. Always between her and the shadowy darkness.
Her elegant hand slips from the trunk of the tree. Nimbly, her body lowers itself closer to the misty ground. Her fingertips dance above a patch of damp soil.
"Here," she whispers out to him.
Merlock turns his head as his body shifts towards her. The ensuing movements causes waves in the energy around them. Even in his crouched position, his form towers over her shoulder. His burnt golden eyes guide her silently to the trampled ferns nearby.
She has seen them long before he nudged her gaze to them. The energy is weaker around them. Screaming...STRANGER!
The stalks of the plants are cracked and limp. She can both sense and smell the oddly black substance flecked across their length. With measured grace, a vial slips into her hands as they touch her belt. Moriah scrapes the sample into the bulb shaped vial. Old blood-not fresh. The scent of iron dulled by the morning dew. She sets her staff down on the ground away from the ferns. With her free hand, she strokes the edges of a boot print stamped deep into the mossy ground. Too wide. Too heavy. These are not the boot prints of her people. The energy was right. These are OTHERS...strangers to her Alderwood.
Her heads lowers. Her eyes flutter shut. The hood of her robe conceals her face except for the few strands of hair that escape it. Around her, the tapestry of energy slows down. She lets her magic pour from her fingertips and soak into the ground. It hunts for the echoes of these strangers.
Then she sees it as clearly as if she were there. A storm. Three sets of boots. The first pair are worn down in too many places. A human. A clumsy brutish one. Moriah turns her head as if to search out his companions. Ah, there they are...a few paces away. The second one has a slight drag in the right heel of the boot. The last set of steps almost elude her. Not touching the ground so much as sweeping over the air above it. An elf. Not one of her own clan. The air around the memory shifts in flavor. She opens her lips and sucks in the desperation. Sharp, reeking of the river banks and the underlying panic.
Her sight snaps back into her skull as she returns to the living present. Merlock's eyes linger on her. An unspoken question.
"Three," she simply says with a low pitch to her voice. Touching the disturbed ground she continues, "Passed through the forest maybe four hours ago. One is of our kind. Two went forward, one stayed back." She grasps her staff. Using it to pull herself up to a standing position, she studies the footprint.
Merlock's only response to her is a guttural rumble emitting from his broad fury chest. Muscles ripple as he stands, shaking off the morning chill. He gazes out to the wooded western area. Pacing that border, his every measured step keeps him between the unknown and Moriah.
The elvish Guardian sets her staff to the side. Her nimble fingers pulls out a silver threaded wire. This will succeed where her magic has failed in gathering information. She puts a gloved finger in her mouth. Using her sharp white teeth to pull, the grey suede slips from her hand. Her nimble fingers cast a sigil over the boot print. Threads of a greyish-black map out the indentation of the first man. The wire trembles in her hand as if to protest. A whisper of laughter. Far off. Cruel.
"Raiders," she says. "The same as last month.